Select students, parents, and staff in the Oakland Unified School District (OUSD) are angry at the possibility of more than a dozen schools being closed, consolidated, or downsized. Adding insult to injury, they are more irritated that this will occur within a short four-month period. Amid a possible self-induced financial crisis, district leaders say there is nothing they can do: and that has catapulted an angry community to stand and fight for their schools. A large group attended the district board meeting on Monday, January 31, 2022, to make their voices heard. And one-by-one about 1,800 folks proceeded to get their points across.
The OUSD will be voting on Feb. 8 to close or modify up to 16 of its eighty operational schools, as well as figuring out which ones to merge. The district’s endgame is to save money by better utilizing their space, considering about nineteen of their buildings have less than 304 enrolled students. Combining certain schools will free up funds for repairs, upgrades, and improved salaries for their teachers and staff.
Fighting Back
Community members packed the meeting room and nearly begged for schools to remain open, or at the very least, extend the timeline past the fall of 2022. The meeting lasted several hours, but the decision stood – despite the obvious reservations – to continue with the original plans. And that decision sparked an uprising.
Protests have begun and are scheduled to continue well into next week. Teachers are, of all things, on a hunger strike, claiming they will starve until talk of school closures ends. And students walked out of class on Tuesday, Feb. 1, in a show of solidarity.
Closures and modifications to area schools will affect teachers and staff, but more importantly, students and their families will be the most severely impacted. Over the next two years, eight schools are scheduled to be closed, affecting hundreds of kids. What they haven’t publicized is that 43% of the students in those schools are black. As Superintendent Kyla Johnson-Trammell said, “This is not easy for me to present this information, especially knowing that African American students and families will be the most impacted by the school recommendations.”
Apparently, it wasn’t that hard to announce.
Reasons for Closing
Reasons for the closures are primarily financial. The district lost an annual $150 million due to low enrollment caused by decreased birth rates, the Coronavirus pandemic, and escalated interest in charter schools. State and county officials are putting pressure on the district to make swift and substantial changes to improve its fiscal standing.
(Carlos Avila Gonzalez/San Francisco Chronicle via Getty Images)
As if to eliminate other options, the Financial Crisis & Management Assistance Team (FCMAT) offered a one-time 10-million-dollar payout to OUSD if they continue with planned closures and consolidations. Part of the agreement is to sell or lease vacant buildings, and the school district must present short and long-term financial plans and complete audits in a timely fashion. “This is the time to make tough decisions, during the time when we have significant one-time funds from the state so we can invest deeply in the process, our schools, students, and staff,” said Superintendent Johnson-Trammel.
Not everyone in OUSD is on board with the current plan of evacuation and consolidation. Mike Hutchinson, director of District 5 denies that the school is in a budgetary crisis. He feels that the closures are unnecessary and opposed taking such swift action amid an already challenging time. Hutchinson stated, “I literally begged for you not to try to do this, especially during a pandemic. How could anyone in good conscience threaten anyone with closing our schools in a 10-day process when you know our communities are suffering?”
Hutchinson and District 3 director VanCedric Williams are both opposed to the closings — but more adamantly so to the seemingly rushed timeline. The OUSD was planning to inform the families of which schools would be affected last week, but Hutchinson felt they deserved to know sooner. So, he posted the information on social media just days before the planned release date. In defense of his actions, Hutchinson said, “One of the things I learned through fighting against school closures for all of these years is that information is key for the community in being able to engage and push back. My job is to make sure my community has that information at the soonest possible time.”
So, Where’s The COVID Money?
The federal government issued three separate relief funds for K-12 schools in the country. California received a generous portion of that money. The Oakland district received $243,827,269.50 in total. So, where did all that money go?
The $54 million received through the CARES Act came with instructions to spend quickly. Thirty-three million was to be spent by December 2021, and much of it went towards technological supplies for the children, along with increased custodial staff and stipends for the teachers. The rest of the money went toward gathering resources, therapy, and aid for students that fell behind during the pandemic.
You Can’t Have It Both Ways
The district insists it has been left with little to no choice but to go ahead with the closures. But the community sees the action as an assault after an already extremely challenging time. A worldwide pandemic can be pointed to as ground zero for this historical awakening of the school systems nationwide. But is this the time, as students and parents are finding a normal world in which to live, to bring chaos to their lives?
~ Read more from Kirsten Brooker.
